


The Origin of Chocolate

by captainofthefallen



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Family, Gen, baby Trinket, winter's crest gift challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 13:31:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8981956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainofthefallen/pseuds/captainofthefallen
Summary: (or, what to do when your sister brings home a bear)Set just after the short story Laura posted about Vex's first meeting with Trinket. Vax becomes an uncle and all is right with the world.Prompt: Family fic about what it was like growing up and having only each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [momentarycarbonstory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentarycarbonstory/gifts).



Vex isn’t in their camp when he returns. That’s not unusual in itself--she’s often wandered off to somewhere nearby, to find water, or to hunt, or to explore the woods, but as Vax sets down the supplies he’s retrieved from the city, something feels _wrong_.  
Little details are off. A half-skinned rabbit is lying in the dirt, too close to the still-burning fire, with no sign of the knife responsible for the job. Their cask of ale is out--as though someone had been in the middle of pouring drinks--and a loaf of bread is half-unwrapped beside it. Vex is far too attentive to rationing, even after only a few weeks away from Syngorn, to leave the camp unattended like this. If she’d wandered off, she at least would have stored the rabbit somewhere, put out the fire so as not to draw attention. So _where is she?_  
For a few moments, he’s frozen in place as scenarios, each worse than the last, chase each other around the inside of his head--Vex, mauled by some creature and dragged off (ridiculous, there’d be obvious signs of a struggle, blood, tracks, _something_ ), Vex, kidnapped and hauled back to Syngorn, back to their father (of course not, why would he go to the trouble of getting them back? He never wanted them in the first place), Vex, setting out to track some animal she’s spotted, wandering too far from camp and unable to find her way back (he actually scoffs aloud at this one--Vex never gets lost in the woods). No, more likely she’s just wandered off into the woods as Vex does, and she’ll be back before he knows it. (He knows it’s not true--Vex is nowhere near careless enough to wander off with the camp in this state.) Abandoning the bag of supplies (Vex will yell at him for it later, but at the moment he can’t bring himself to care) he begins to search the camp for a sign, anything to indicate what’s happened to his sister.  
He’s nowhere near the tracker she is--not in the woods, anyway. In the city, he could have tracked her down and been home for supper, but not here. In the end, though, he decides not to leave the camp to search. He has no clue where she could be, after all, and unlike her, he has a tendency to get lost in the woods--all trees look the same. Vex has tried to teach him tracking--seeing distinctions in the leaves, identifying types of trees, looking for snapped twigs and spatters of blood or tracks--but he’s completely useless at it, especially in the dark. If he leaves the camp now, they’ll both end up lost. He’ll search in the morning, when he has half a chance of keeping track of where he is.  
He’s dozing fitfully in his bedroll, poised to awaken at the slightest noise, when he hears the snapping of a twig and sits bolt upright. His tension eases when he recognizes his sister’s slender frame silhouetted against the dying firelight. But she’s not alone.  
In her arms is cradled a bear--a small bear, but a bear nonetheless. Vax jumps to his feet and rushes over to her, checking for injuries, but other than a few bruises, a small scratch on her throat, and an expression more haunted than he’s ever seen, she seems unharmed. “Where’ve you been?” he asks, hugging her (bear and all). “And why, for heaven’s sake, have you got a _bear_ with you?”  
She shrugs noncommittally. “You’re always finding trinkets to take with you,” she points out, a note of teasing accusation in her voice. “I wanted one of my own. Isn’t that right, buddy?” she croons to the cub, who simply gives a tiny, mournful-sounding _mrrr_ in response.  
It’s not until the next morning that Vax learns she’s actually _named_ the thing Trinket. It also seems she’s adopted it ( _him_ , she corrects Vax with a scowl). She feeds it by hand, saving it the best scraps of meat they’ve got, and once it’s eaten, she starts trying to train it.  
Vax is exasperated to say the least, and in the beginning he only watches to see how long it’ll take her to figure out it’s not possible. To say he’s surprised when it actually starts to work is an understatement. She starts with simple commands ( _sit_ takes at least a week, but once the bear has grown used to her training methods, the process speeds up considerably). Vax can’t quite put his finger on why at first, but he starts to enjoy watching them.  
A few weeks later, as he prepares dinner, watching Vex trying to teach the bear to _charge_ with an easy smile on his face, something clicks. He understands. She’s _happy._ It’s been years since he’s seen that particular smile on her face--a smile of contentment, of peace. Whenever she smiled in Syngorn, it was marred by the crease of worry between her brows, the sadness and fear and loneliness in her eyes. But here, in a small camp in the woods with her adopted bear, his sister is happy again.  
She leaves the animal behind in camp a few days later when she leaves to hunt. The bear gives her what she calls “his puppy eyes” (Vax can’t quite see the comparison), but she just scratches it behind the ears and assures it that “Mummy will be back soon.” Vax rolls his eyes with a smile on his face.  
Once she’s gone, though, he pulls up a tree stump next to where the cub is curled up, apparently moping, with its head on its paws. “Hey… Trinket,” Vax starts, a little awkwardly. “Look… shit, I feel like an idiot. Talking to a bear.”  
The bear makes another _mrrrrr_ noise, which, if Vax didn’t know better, would sound a bit disgruntled.  
“I just wanted to say, thanks,” Vax plows on, averting his gaze from the bear’s eyes. “I don’t know if you can understand me--Vex seems to think you can--but you’ve made my sister happy, which I--well, honestly I had no idea where to even begin. So.” And he holds out his hand to the bear, containing a single square of the chocolate he managed to procure on his last trip to the city. Trinket lifts his head from his paws, sniffing, stretching out his neck so that he can examine the offering. Then, with one big swipe of his tongue, the chocolate is gone. Trinket gives a _mrrr_ that Vax might interpret as “satisfied,” and lays his head back down, blinking slowly at his mother’s twin.  
Vex returns not too long after that with a deer slung over her shoulder and a smile on her face. She stops short as she enters the camp, taking in the strange scene. “Vax, are you having a staring contest with my bear?”  
“Yes,” says Vax, at the same time as Trinket says _mrrrr_ and lumbers to his feet, plodding over to Vex as quickly as his little legs will carry him. “And I just won,” he adds.  
Trinket licks Vex’s face as she lifts him into her arms. “You’re getting big, darling,” she grunts. “Won’t be able to do this much--hang on. Vax? Have you been feeding him chocolate?”  
Vax tries to look innocent. “Me? Why would I feed him chocolate?”  
“You _have!_ ” Vex accuses.  
He grins at her. “All right, I have. Nothing like an uncle to make sure a kid's spoiled properly, hm?”  
Vex scowls at him and sets Trinket down so she can cross her arms. “Don’t do it again,” she scolds. “It’s not good for him!”  
“Never,” Vax declares dramatically, crossing the camp to scratch Trinket behind the ears and overtly feed him another piece of chocolate. Trinket gives a contented _mrrr_ and rubs his head against Vax’s leg as Vex takes a few steps toward him and smacks the back of her brother’s head. They’re a strange family, to be sure, Vax thinks, but at least here there’s no father to hound their every step, to try to mold them into something they’re not and never will be. At least here they know they can rely on each other. And at least here, his sister is happy, even if she had to adopt a bear to achieve it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've ever really done something like this, so I hope it lives up to your expectations. I just love the idea of them leaving Syngorn and making their own family, and I felt like Vex adopting Trinket is a pretty big part of that. Thanks for reading!


End file.
